News digest 4 November 2014

News digest 4 November 2014

04 November 2014

After yesterday’s good news with the announcement of a rise in the living wage by 20p to £7.85 and an increase in the London living wage to £9.15 [although a much greater number of employers need to sign up to make a greater impact], today sees more optimism over pay for workers after many of the papers trail the expected ruling today in a tribunal over holiday pay. The right wing papers focus on the pressure on small firms [ignoring the fact that they have not paid their staff fairly – hence the tribunal], but the reality is that the workers were denied their due and the companies must pay up…

And talking of paying up today is equal pay day, although it really should be unequal pay day as it marks the last day of paid work for women to illustrate the huge gap between men’s and women’s wages, what’s more the day is three days earlier as a result of the impact of the Con-Dem’s coalition’s policies with the gender pay gap widening to 15.7 per cent…

And from low pay to no pay and the Guardian carries the scandalous story of John McArthur who has been ordered by the DWP to work for the same firm that let him go from a (paid) temporary job, but this time he will get no pay. That’s the reality behind the fall in the number of jobless in this country, and sadly the fear is we’ll go from scandalously low pay [as Polly Toynbee sums it up in the Guardian] to no pay.

And someone with no pay [but a big pay off] is Lib Dem and now ex-minister Normal Lamb who has resigned from the coalition with a brutal attack on home secretary Theresa May saying “rational evidence based policy” was in short supply in the Home Office [only the Home Office, has he not looked at the rest of the coalition’s policies?], but there’s not good news for Labour leader Ed Miliband with Labour’s poll share dropping to 29 per cent [odd that the papers neglect to mention the Tories are down at 30 per cent], while prime minister David Cameron also faces a headache after German chancellor’s Angela Merkel’s comments on free movement of labour, interestingly chancellor George Osborne has muscled in on the debate [especially as it was he who forget to mention the bill in the first place], could he be angling for the post-Cameron crown?

However, the biggest U-turn of the day goes not to Griff Rhys Jones moaning about the mansion tax [the poor multimillionaire does not want to pay up for his multiple homes] but Michael O’Leary from Ryanair whose company seems to be benefiting from its ‘be nice to your customers’ approach, now if he’d only do the same to his staff…